Re Boas and translations

[David D. Robertson]

Tlus son, kanawi,

Bernard makes a good point, but F. Boas certainly knew Jargon well.  Big
reason for saying so:  Jargon was the primary language Boas shared with
many of his NW native consultants, and the results of those investigations
are considered superb.  Small reason for saying so:  when Boas visited
Kamloops, it only took him about an hour to learn how to read _Kamloops
Wawa_ in Jargon.  (It only took that long, one supposes, because he needed
to learn the shorthand alphabet.)

I think the Jargon songs we've been mentioning were collected at the
beginning of Boas' career, when he may have been less fluent in Jargon.
And perhaps he never revised his translations of them, once he did become
more fluent in the language.

My comments on Boas' translations are limited to a few details, like the
difference between "hello" and "goodbye," which are expressed by the same
word in Jargon -- context being the disambiguator.  And suggesting a
correction from "wife" to "husband" in the case of <oleman> is another
detail.  I mean to suggest that the reader of Boas' song collection have a
critical eye, as is usually demanded of us when we read Jargon.

Thanks to Scott Tyler for suggesting to me the reading "Many greetings!"
for the start of the "no one in Victoria says hello" song.

Goodbye from Victoria ;-) where I'm working on a CJ paper for Morphology
class,

--Dave R.


On Tue, 9 Dec 2003 12:20:35 -0800, Bernard <bernard.schulmann at LILLONET.CA>
wrote:

>Always keep in mind that Franz Boas was a native German that likely
>learned a learned French as a second language and a English as a third.
>
>As someone that is a native German speaker, I did not learn English till
>I started school, I have spend a since age 7 that translation of words
>between differing languages is almost always an approxiamation of the
>real meaning of the word.    His internal brain language would have been
>German and his fundamental understanding and language aqusition would
>have been structured by German.
>
>Therefore I am not suprised  Boas  has a differing  understanding of
>what the words in CJ mean.
>
>>/Cultus kopa nika
>>     Spose mika mahsh nika.
>>Hiyu "puti boys" cooley kopa town;
>>     Alki weght nika iskum.
>>Wake kull kopa nika./
>>
>>(Boas translates this:
>>
>>'I don't care
>>     If you desert me.
>>Many pretty boys walk in town;
>>     Soon (one will) take me again.
>>It is not hard on me.')
>>
>>It's not for me to question Boas' notably gifted ear, but I would have
>>translated this as:
>>
>>"I don't care
>>     If you leave me.
>>There are lots of pretty boys around town;
>>     I'll get another one.
>>It's easy for me!"
>>
>
>In German to leave someone is verlassen, but in reality that word in
>German means more of an word like desert or abadoned.
>
>In the context of the fourth line he uses a more gender neutral term for
>the "boys" which rings true to me if one were to do a translation of the
>equivilant from German.
>
>In German there is no direct word for It's easy for me, but there is a
>direct Es faellt mir nicht schwer which word for word becomes It falls
>me not heavy, which idiomatically translates as It is not hard for me.
>
>What this all says to me is that sub-concisously Boas was working from a
>German context (you can ask my wife how often I still do this to this day)
>
>Bernard
>
>
>Automatic digest processor wrote:
>
>>
>>     CHINOOK Digest - 5 Dec 2003 to 8 Dec 2003 (#2003-110)
>>
>>
>>       Table of contents:
>>
>>     * Note on "Note on the Chinook Jargon" <#S1>
>>
>>    1. Note on "Note on the Chinook Jargon"
>>           * Re: Note on "Note on the Chinook Jargon"
>>             <mailbox:///C%7C/DOCUMENTS%20AND%20SETTINGS/BOB/APPLICATION%
20DATA/Mozilla/Profiles/default/4k10h7oq.slt/Mail/mail.lillonet.ca/Inbox?
number=9926696&header=quotebody&part=1.2>
>>             (12/08)
>>             From: "Bruce, Colin" <Colin.Bruce at FRASERHEALTH.CA>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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